The present invention relates to a massaging device for feet and legs, in more detail, it relates to a practical massaging device for feet and legs wherein vital points (or "tsubo" in Japanese) sporadically found in those body portions can be comfortably and adequately stimulated from most ideal angle with respect to those vital points by statically pressurizing them in one's seating and lying postures, so that the users can obtain satisfactory and favorable result of the treatment.
It is believed in an oriental medicine that there exist a number of the vital points relating to internal organs and cerebral nervous system and forming a part of "keiraku" in Japanese or a complicated network through which the vital energy essential to sustain our body flows on the soles of the feet and the calves of the legs generally considered as a mere human organ for walking. In old ages when the men lived in a primitive way, they walked on the rocky mountains and the fields full of stone and pebbles on barefoot so that their feet and legs were always subjected to continuous stimulation without realizing it, with the result that the primitive were invulnerable to such nervous disorder of internal organs and humor or endocrine and exocrine glands as we have at present.
However, as we have become more civilized, we have come to more often use a foot-covering with hard sole such as a pair of shoes and wooden footgear. Even though we now encourage ourselves to walk and jog every day, we can not obtain the same stimulation on our feet as in the primitive ages because the roads have become paved and levelled. In particular, as we now tend to neglect walking because we have accustomed to using transportation means such as cars and trains, the stimulation on the vital points of our feet and legs is not enough to prevent the disorder of nervous system as well as endocrine and exocrine glands, with the result that many of us suffer from dysautonomia, stiff shoulders and legs as well as loins pain or internal organ disease such as gastric and duodenal ulcer. This is the destiny of human beings who evolved from quadrupeds and began to walk wearing a foot-covering with hard sole on their feet so that they are chronically lacking in the stimulation on their feet and legs from their environment.
Under the circumstances, various types of massaging devices have been proposed to stimulate the vital points of the feet. The most popular device among them is a so-called "massaging device made of a spieces of a thick-stemmed bamboo wedged half in section". This device is used by placing it on the floor with its semi-circular surface facing upwards and is intended to stimulate the soles of the feet with said semi-circular surface when the users stand on the device barefoot and step on its surface repeatedly. Therefore, each time the users step on the semi-circular surface, the feet are pressurized against this surface so that they feel like being massaged on the feet by hand.
However, this prior device has been found inconvenient to use not only because all the vital points sporadically found on the feet can not be selectly and properly stimulated and the other portions of the feet soles besides those vital points are also pressurized as the feet are directly placed with respect to the semi-circular surface, a favorable effect can not be highly expected of this device considering that it gives hard pain to the feet supporting the whole weight of the user, but also because this device requires a considerable sense of balance, of course, though it does not need such a fine balance as required for walking on a thin rope as a ropedancer, it surely gave hard time to the elderly people, for instance.
Then, in order to solve the inconveninces of the aforesaid prior massaging device, "a massaging mat the surface of which the users step on" has been proposed as an improved device wherein a number of fingerlike elastic projections (B.multidot.B.multidot.) are mounted on the surface of an elastic rubber mat (Mt) as shown in FIG. 1. This improved device can more selectly pressurize the vital points of the feet and requires less sense of balance than the firstly mentioned prior art, but it gives effect also on the premise that the users stand on the mat and step on its surface. Therefore, if the projections (B.multidot.B.multidot..multidot.) are hardend too much, it gives hard pain to the users whereas if they are softened too much in order to abate the pain, they subside so easily that they can not properly stimulate those vital points.
The most incovenience common in both those prior arts, among others, is that the users tend to neglect using them according to the passage of time and even though the users are industrious enough to keep using them, they have to oblige themselves to keep making such an extraordinary stepping motion as mentioned above each time they like to use in the office so that they come to hesitate using them concurrently at work.